16 photographs uncovering the Holocaust

Following the death of his grandfather, US filmmaker Matthew Nash began investigating a stack of pictures left by the WW2 veteran, delving deep into Holocaust history. A documentary film chronicling Nash's journey will be shown at the Cinémathèque on Thursday.

30.03.2015

(CS) Following the death of his grandfather, US filmmaker Matthew Nash began investigating a stack of pictures left by the WW2 veteran, delving deep into Holocaust history. A documentary film chronicling the journey will be shown at the Cinémathèque on Thursday.

“16 Photographs at Ohrdruf” tells the story of the 89th Infantry Division, which on its fight to liberate Western Europe from Nazi rule also was the first group of soldiers to come across a concentration camp.

Part of General George S Patton Jr's Third Army, the 89th Infantry Divison landed in France in early 1945, marched onwards to Luxembourg, from where they headed to the German.

On April 4, having made their way all the way to Thuringia in central Germany, the division liberated Ohrdruf, the first Nazi concentration camp to be discovered by US forces and a sub-camp of Buchenwald, located around 65 kilometres away.

It was in Ohrdruf that Nash's grandfather took 16 pictures that survived the following decades and took the young filmmaker on a quest to understand what the soldiers had witnessed and the role they played in uncovering the Holocaust.

The award-winning film now comes to Luxembourg, with a screening taking place at the Luxembourg City Cinémathèque on Thursday, April 2. Filmmaker Matthew Nash will join the event that starts at 5pm.